Something Audacious to Look Forward to This Year

Discussion: What are we looking forward to?

Hello Audacious Ones! How are you? I have to admit that I haven’t been feeling very audacious lately. I’ve been quite sick. It’s pretty ironic that I moved to Manchester to avoid the toll on my health of commuting back and forth from Edinburgh, but in the short term I’ve been worse. I’ve had intense vertigo attacks ever since the move, which has been more stressful than I expected it to be. (Which is why you didn’t hear from me last week.)

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The good news is that I’ve gotten some amazing help from the NHS. Whereas in the US I always had to wait so long to get an appointment that my symptoms sometimes abated on their own after weeks of struggling, here I was able to have a phone consult with a doctor the same day. And he presribed a medication that isn’t available in the US but that is used widely here to treat Meniere’s Disease. It will take some time to know if it’s working, but I’m hopeful.

So my year has gotten off to a rather whimpering start. How about yours? Are you feeling ready for this year ahead? What are you looking forward to?

I know this may be a difficult question to answer for many of us right now. (And I really don’t want to go anywhere political with this because there are enough spaces out there where people can have their say about the state of the world.) But I’d love for us to think about where we are going in a positive sense because we all have the power to grow and learn in the direction(s) that really matter to us.

For me, I’m looking forward to the rest of my Master’s course and to studying with Jeanette Winterson and Sarah Hall this semester. Super exciting! By the end of the year, I’d love to have a complete rough draft of my novel as well. We’ll see how that goes.

I’m also super excited to be participating in the Women’s Almanac, a special offering that is the brain-child of Cummari founder Michelle Titus. I’ve written before about my time in Sicily with Cummari, a women’s co-living, co-working space. And I’ve shared the retreat that I’ll be leading with Cummari in October. (REALLY looking forward to that as well!) The Women’s Almanac is Michelle’s first year-long, online experience. It’s a truly astounding opportunity to learn from a whole group of amazing, audacious women!

So many of us are looking for ways to get unstuck, to shift our energy into more productive channels, to connect with each other in ways that empower us rather than leave us depleted, as so much of our contemporary culture does. Michelle’s beautiful vision is definitely a ray of light that will nourish everyone who takes part.

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What is the Women’s Almanac?

In Michelle’s words,

“The almanac for women is a philosophy of guidance that allows women to weave natural, seasonal rhythms and the movements of celestial bodies into their lives. It connects women with something greater than themselves and provides guidance on when to harvest and when to nurture their life’s desires.”

Jules Breton, Calling in the Gleaners (Le Rappel des glaneuses), at Musée d'Orsay

The experience will consist of 8 guided sessions and 8 group calls, bringing together women from diverse backgrounds and various stages of life on a journey through the transitions of a year, supporting and witnessing each other as we define who we want to be and what kind of life we want to be living.

Every woman reaches a point where the risk of standing still outweighs the courage it takes to leap forward.

Cummari Women’s Almanac: Learn more

What is truly remarkable is that each session and follow-up call will be lead by a different female practitioner who has her own hard-won wisdom and her own path to share. The 8 guides of the Women’s Almanac include:

• Certified astrologer

• Licensed marriage and family therapist

• Tarot reader

• Feminine anthropologist

• Authentic alignment business coach

• Author of women’s stories (that’s me!)

• Somatic educator

• Licensed trauma, sex, and relationship therapist

You can meet all of us here. It’s truly a remarkable a group. And another amazing aspect of the Almanac is that each of us will also be participating in the whole journey as we learn from each other and grow in new ways. I’m so grateful to be included, truly humbled by the talents and life experiences of these women.

My part will come in the winter (after my course and the retreat are over). We will be looking at how the dark times of life also offer us the most creative potential. We were created in darkness, and to darkness will we return. As women, we cycle through periods of light and dark, and our greatest wisdom, our gifts of light, emerge from those dark periods. I will share some of my own experiences with the dark as I’ve been on this journey these past few years, and how I’ve learned to embrace it as much as I’ve yearned for the light.

For women to step off the societally ordained path—to live for ourselves and do what pleases us and no one else—is truly audacious. And it can be so daunting. When I was still back in my old life, I know that I could have used something like this program for inspiration and support. I felt all alone with my desires and fears. It was like giving birth to myself without a doula or a support group to help me through it. But we don't have to do it on our own!

It begins on March 23rd, and there are some free offerings coming up in the next weeks.

You can find all the details here: https://www.womensalmanac.com/

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Now it’s your turn. . . .

What are you looking forward to this year?

See you in the comments!

—Anne

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